Posted on 06/12/2004 3:06:41 AM PDT by sarcasm
he far left in America has not had a lot to celebrate recently. So a good-size crowd, and not all of it graybeards, turned up at Columbia Law School on Thursday evening for a party in honor of a new book, "No Surrender: Selected Writings of an Anti-Imperialist Political Prisoner," by David Gilbert.
Mark Rudd, who as a member of Students for a Democratic Society led the antiwar demonstrations that shut down Columbia in the spring of 1968, was there, along with an assortment of Black Panther alumni and former members of the Weathermen. But there was also a large representation of young people, one of whom came in on a skateboard. Several of them said they were fans of Sam Green and Bill Siegel's recent documentary film "The Weather Underground." Women slightly outnumbered men at the party, which must say something or other about the changing nature of the radical soul.
Mr. Gilbert himself was unable to attend, except via a recorded message in which he sent a "loving anti-imperialist hug" to everyone. He has been a prisoner in the New York State correction system since 1982 and will not be eligible for parole until 2056. His 23-year-old son, Chesa Boudin, was on hand, though — tall, handsome and articulate and just back from Merton College, Oxford, where he is finishing his first year as a Rhodes Scholar. Mr. Boudin (whose first name means "dancing feet" in Swahili) is left-wing royalty — or he would be if the left wing did not disapprove of royalty.
Mr. Boudin's mother is Kathy Boudin. In 1981 she and Mr. Gilbert, then a leader of the Weather Underground, and several others were arrested after a notorious incident in Nanuet, N.Y. The group attempted to hold up a Brink's truck, though Mr. Gilbert later said it had not been a robbery, strictly speaking, but an "armed action" intended to "expropriate" funds that properly belonged to the black community. A Brink's guard was shot to death while loading moneybags into the back of the truck, and two police officers were later killed at a roadblock in nearby Nyack, N.Y.
The radicals were all charged with robbery and second-degree murder. Two of them, Ms. Boudin and Samuel Brown, hired conventional lawyers and defended themselves in court. The others, including Mr. Gilbert, boycotted their own trial, claiming that they belonged to the Provisional Government of New Afrika and should be treated as prisoners of war according to the Geneva Conventions.
Ms. Boudin, who eventually expressed remorse and sought forgiveness, was paroled last summer and reunited with her son, who was just 14 months old when she was sent to jail. Mr. Gilbert, unrepentant, still claims to be the political prisoner of an imperialist United States government.
Time has not been kind to the reputation of the Weather Underground. Much of the rhetoric seems stale now, and many of the old heroes, like Cesar Chavez and Timothy Leary, are on their way to being demoted or forgotten. The group began quarreling back in the 70's, after three of them had been blown up in a Greenwich Village town house that had been turned into a bomb factory. Most members — like Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn, who together raised Chesa Boudin — eventually resurfaced, got jobs, mortgages and charge cards, and began to lead more or less conventional lives. Even while clinging to some of the old revolutionary ideals, these former members of the Weather Underground have for the most part renounced violence, especially the tactic of bombing civilian targets.
In a memoir he published in 2001, "Fugitive Days," (Beacon Press), Mr. Ayers hedged a little, fondly recalling parts of his underground life and repudiating others. About bombing, he said he could not entirely rule out the possibility of someday doing it again. But the book came out not long after 9/11, and partly because of remarks like this, it failed to win a wide or sympathetic audience. The terror attacks, it seemed, had cast an unforgiving pall over the history of the Weather Underground and removed whatever traces of revolutionary glamour that still clung to it.
In his book (Abraham Guillen Press/Arm the Spirit) Mr. Gilbert says that he was stunned and anguished by the attacks on the World Trade Center — though he hastens to add that the United States is still the greatest terrorist of all, enforcing a "political and economic system that kills millions of human beings worldwide every year." The message of his book is essentially antiwar, however, and most of the chapters are devoted to issues like AIDS, the environment and prison reform. There are even some flashes of humor, as in a letter that he sent to Chesa in college suggesting as the title for a biology term paper "A Study in Parasitism: The Battle With Blood-Soaked U.S. Capitalist Patriarchal White Supremacist Homophobic Imperialism and Its Running-Dog Lackeys and Evil Gentry!"
Matt Meyer, one of the party's organizers, said he thought that Mr. Gilbert's basic politics were unchanged. "But questions of tactics, strategy," he said, "these are things everyone has thought about. David Dellinger used to talk about how Gilbert was coming back into the pacifist fold. I don't think I'd go that far, but David certainly has a different analysis of violence than he had in 1981."
By the usual standards of Upper West Side book parties, this was a tame and remarkably abstemious affair. At the end there was actually some wine left over. There was some schmoozing but no talk of agents and advances. The guests mostly sat quietly and listened to a series of speeches and readings from Mr. Gilbert's book. The word "comrade" was used a lot, and there were numerous references to other prisoners, especially Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Pennsylvania journalist who is on death row, on charges related to the shooting of a Philadelphia police officer.
The second-biggest cheer of the evening went to Susan Rosenberg, a former member of the Weather Underground pardoned by President Bill Clinton. She said, "We hated Reagan, damn it," and went on to tell a story about a friend who stopped smoking pot the day of President Ronald Reagan's inauguration because he knew "things were about to get serious."
The biggest and warmest cheer went to Chesa Boudin, who mentioned that he was supposed to be studying for exams and that his father had told him not to come to the party. "But one of the things my dad taught me was to question authority," he said. "So I immediately bought a plane ticket." After reading from the end of his father's book, he gave a moving and eloquent speech citing Che Guevara's belief that "the true revolutionary is guided by great feelings of love," and ended by challenging everyone in the audience to "join in a lifetime struggle for freedom."
No one mentioned the three people killed in the robbery.
Hard to believe that the NYT finished with this sentence.
Old Scum never dies; it just smells more as it gets older and moldier.
I haven't heard of the "Students for a Democratic Society", AKA the SDS, for YEARS!
I remember those morons from my college days back in the 60s.
Their handbook was "The Thoughts of Chairman Mao". Their theme was "Cultural Revolution".
Even the Commie John Lennon said, "But if you go carrying pictures of Chairman Mao, you ain't gonna make it with anyone anyhow."
Ya say you want a revolution...
Anyone want to bet that the horrific misfortune of being born a red diaper baby eventually will trump any genetic advantage in this young man?
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda. You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning.
I don't see any sparks, do you?
Faggotry.
"The word "comrade" was used a lot, and there were numerous references to other prisoners, especially Mumia Abu-Jamal, the Pennsylvania journalist who is on death row, on charges related to the shooting of a Philadelphia police officer."
Fry Mumia now.
The kid is a Rhodes Scholar. tells you something about Rhodes Scholarships doesnt it? How did he get it? By being far left. This sounds more like a recruitment party for potential Al Quaeda terrorists than a real party.
Bump! This is something I imagine will increase - especially if conservatives win again this fall. The loss of power and the receding fortunes of the left will drive them back into the radicalism from which the New Left sprang. If they can't do it with the ballot box, they'll reignite their armed elements and radical ideology.
Stand aside for the new King, or should I say Comrade of Comedy.
We had another definition for SDS, Stupid Dip Sh**s and Students for a DUMBA** Society when I was on campus.
It's best to read your text before replying. I initially typed Rhoides instead of Rhodes but I guess that misspelled merging of the two similar sounding but differently spelled words would work too
He's sitting on them.
Where's a suicide bomber when you really need one?
Great post. I just watched the movie, the Weather Underground, and came away infuriated by it and remain so.
These people are walking pieces of human excrement for reasons that don't require enumeration.
I will only make a few points. First, despite the last sentence about the people killed in the bank robbery, this is typical NY Times pinko reporting as it describes this "oh so chic" gathering on the upper west side. No surprise there, however.
Second, the points made about the red diaper baby being a Rhodes Scholar are important and timely - if Che Guevuera had had a son, you can bet he would have been Rhodes "scholar" as well.
Finally, when I take a step back from all of this, I am struck by the enormity of the contradictions inherent in all of leftist political "thought". Talking revolution at a wine and cheese party on the uppper west side? Former bomb throwers growing up and getting charge cards and mortgages and speaking wistfully about their fiery youth? Talking about "kill your parents" while in the Weather Underground, but then relying on said parents to buy your lawyers to spring you from jail? In the movie commentary, scumbag Ayers in one sentence said that "capitalism is evil and needs to be destroyed" and in the very next sentence speaks to Dohrn who charged "non-revolutionary" press $25 to attend some Weather meeting and says "You should have charged them $100.".
My prayer is that in one single moment of lucidity all of these "revolutionaries" see the immense contradiction that is their lives and in a single moment of clarity they do the noble thing and off themselves.
Notice that the Times doesn't mention that it ran a front-page puffpiece on this jerk. The date of the puff piece -- 9/11/01.
I think perhaps you ARE seeing a pattern. Its been there all along.
And their free-love policy was nooky for anyone posing as a revolutionary. It got so bad (or so good depending on one's perspective) that in H-wood all the actors, agents, etc developed a mania for scoring on 'hippy-chicks'.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.